Beautiful Trouble Book Launch — Berlin

Join us on Thursday, September 13 @ 8pm at St. George’s Bookstore to celebrate the Berlin book launch of Beautiful Trouble: A Toolbox for Revolution (OR Books, 2012).

Co-editor/author Andrew Boyd and local contributor Dmytri Kleiner will present the book and some of its key ideas, followed by an open discussion of the state and future of creative activism in Berlin. Stay afterward for more libations and creative scheming with your fellow beautiful troublemakers.

Beautiful Trouble is a book and web toolbox that puts the accumulated wisdom of decades of creative protest into the hands of the next generation of change-makers. Copies of the book will be available for purchase.

From the Arab Spring to the American Fall and beyond, a new global people’s movement is being born. The impossible suddenly seems possible, and all around the world ordinary people are trying out new tools and tactics to win victories where they live. In the shadow of austerity and ecological crisis, the urgency of this political moment demands resources that will transform outrage into effective action. Beautiful Trouble is a toolbox for the next revolution.
Who is it for?

Beautiful Trouble is both sophisticated enough for veteran activists and accessible enough for newbies. Both artists and activists will find it useful, as it showcases the synergies between artistic imagination and shrewd political strategy. Beautiful Trouble is for everyone who longs for a more beautiful, more just, more livable world – and wants to know how to get there.

Is it a book or a website?

Both! The project consists of short, interrelated modules – creative tactics, action design principles, case studies, and theoretical frameworks – that together comprise an accessible matrix of best practices and ideas in creative campaigning. The website will soon include the core content of the book as well as a growing array of additional modules, resources, profiles, debates and much more. With your help, the site will evolve in real time with new social movements and their latest tactical innovations.

Can you say more about the book itself?

The physical book is 6″ x 9,” about 450 pages long and published by OR Books. It can be purchased online only. A full color e-book in a range of formats is also available. In the future, the book will also be available from Amazon and select booksellers.

What makes it unique?

Beautiful Trouble not only presents cutting-edge content in an innovative modular structure, it was assembled in a rather unusual manner as well. With many contributors from around the world participating, the entire project was assembled in the cloud, in an open, collaborative process. We also hosted four “book sprints” – weekend-long gatherings where authors and editors gathered face-to-face and locked ourselves in a large room to write, write, write! Beautiful Trouble’s publisher, OR Books, a nimble, progressive, independent publisher with an innovative post-print business model.